Hal Jordan: Green Lantern Appreciation 2020

[HAN9000]

anybody read the latest issue yet? i won't be able to till a couple of days from now.

I did.
spoilers:

As a female reader, I'm amazed and deeply moved by the matriarchal society of Earth 11 Morrison presents in this issue. Morrison is truly a writer of special insight.

end of spoilers

[Bored at 3:00AM]

anybody read the latest issue yet? i won't be able to till a couple of days from now.

I enjoyed it a lot. Morrison is doing some fun stuff with Earth-11 beyond simply swapping everyone's gender

[liwanag]

great to hear that han9000 and bored.

i'm excited to see carol again/finally.

from the previews, it looked like it won't be one time read for me.

[j9ac9k]

***LIGHT SPOILERS FOR TGL #9****
I agree that this is chock full of Morrison's signature multiverse building with crazy concepts alternate characters. I like his take on Hyperman's behavior shifts - that it's just an excuse. Makes me wonder if this is what he might think of Superman's relationship with Kryptonite to some degree. I'm not sure, but it also seems he thinks of Carol as having her old-school split personality rather than of Carol simply having a Sapphire ring and is in full control of her faculties. Still great to see her, regardless. I'm glad she was able to quickly catch on to the fake Hal rather than get into any mistaken identity shenanigans.

I also have to wonder if the Golden Destroyer is somehow related to the Invisible Destroyer. (could he actually wield the invisible UV spectrum??)

[K. Jones]

***LIGHT SPOILERS FOR TGL #9****
I agree that this is chock full of Morrison's signature multiverse building with crazy concepts alternate characters. I like his take on Hyperman's behavior shifts - that it's just an excuse. Makes me wonder if this is what he might think of Superman's relationship with Kryptonite to some degree. I'm not sure, but it also seems he thinks of Carol as having her old-school split personality rather than of Carol simply having a Sapphire ring and is in full control of her faculties. Still great to see her, regardless. I'm glad she was able to quickly catch on to the fake Hal rather than get into any mistaken identity shenanigans.

I also have to wonder if the Golden Destroyer is somehow related to the Invisible Destroyer. (could he actually wield the invisible UV spectrum??)

I liked this a lot. I was literally just starting to get those pangs of like "wait what the heck is the over-arcing thing and how is any of this tying in at this point?" and here it all falls into place rapidly. The (at long last) Carol Ferris of it all, syncing up nicely with the expedition to Earth-11, haunted by the mysterious Zundernell and promising that loose thread dealt with. Hal Jordan verbally, diagetically talking about "What's up with the Young Guardians vs. the Old?" and diagetically being like "Oh hey I feel like maybe the fact that the last few months have been a gauntlet of me coming face-to-face with all my ex-girlfriends might have some kind of plot significance here". All that and the United Planets Super Group politics.

I know it's Earth-11, the sex-swapped (mostly?) Earth but one can't help but draw something of an eye to the fact that it also feels like Wonder Woman: Earth One. I also think it's neat that it's not purely a sex-swap world, or at least it appears not to be. Hal-11 still appears to be an XY human and Carol-11 appears to be an XX. Although there's still the lingering curiosity of whether they just look like Hal and Carol ... but actually Star Sapphire is a female Hal and toxic GL is actually a male Carol, hence why they played some "this is awkward" angles when Sapphire-11 first showed up and Hal was interested (he'd be interested in himself) and why Sapphire-11 made a point to say that kissing Hal here was mission-focused and under strict guidelines. Because if you're trying to draw the attention of the Golden Destroyer, you might need more of a "two of the same person contact thing" (akin to the Anti-Matter Annihilation, but not destructive).

Obviously here it appears that Bruce* and Michael Holt* are female, etc ... but it definitely appears that Wonder Woman is not. Is she the only exception? We know from Multiversity stuff that there's at least some sort of "Wonder Man" figure here, we know there's certainly a Superwoman we've met a few times, we know that Aquawoman is the most powerful native being on the planet and seems to represent Earth-11 in all the leadership things. (Actually this would likely be true for Aquaman on Earth-0 if anyone thought about it.) And we know there's a fun flipped version of the Teen Titans coming up.

Those are most of my lingering thoughts, not organized into good specifics yet. Art was great. I liked Sharpe showing reality-warping effects and splitting the difference between the airbrushed high sci-fi he's been laying down and more of a Silver Age Romance Comic style here and there. Frankly based on the cover I'd been hoping for a lot more of the Romance Comic vibe.

Carol is PISSED.

[Ra-El]

I liked this a lot. I was literally just starting to get those pangs of like "wait what the heck is the over-arcing thing and how is any of this tying in at this point?" and here it all falls into place rapidly. The (at long last) Carol Ferris of it all, syncing up nicely with the expedition to Earth-11, haunted by the mysterious Zundernell and promising that loose thread dealt with. Hal Jordan verbally, diagetically talking about "What's up with the Young Guardians vs. the Old?" and diagetically being like "Oh hey I feel like maybe the fact that the last few months have been a gauntlet of me coming face-to-face with all my ex-girlfriends might have some kind of plot significance here". All that and the United Planets Super Group politics.

I know it's Earth-11, the sex-swapped (mostly?) Earth but one can't help but draw something of an eye to the fact that it also feels like Wonder Woman: Earth One. I also think it's neat that it's not purely a sex-swap world, or at least it appears not to be. Hal-11 still appears to be an XY human and Carol-11 appears to be an XX. Although there's still the lingering curiosity of whether they just look like Hal and Carol ... but actually Star Sapphire is a female Hal and toxic GL is actually a male Carol, hence why they played some "this is awkward" angles when Sapphire-11 first showed up and Hal was interested (he'd be interested in himself) and why Sapphire-11 made a point to say that kissing Hal here was mission-focused and under strict guidelines. Because if you're trying to draw the attention of the Golden Destroyer, you might need more of a "two of the same person contact thing" (akin to the Anti-Matter Annihilation, but not destructive).

Obviously here it appears that Bruce* and Michael Holt* are female, etc ... but it definitely appears that Wonder Woman is not. Is she the only exception? We know from Multiversity stuff that there's at least some sort of "Wonder Man" figure here, we know there's certainly a Superwoman we've met a few times, we know that Aquawoman is the most powerful native being on the planet and seems to represent Earth-11 in all the leadership things. (Actually this would likely be true for Aquaman on Earth-0 if anyone thought about it.) And we know there's a fun flipped version of the Teen Titans coming up.

Those are most of my lingering thoughts, not organized into good specifics yet. Art was great. I liked Sharpe showing reality-warping effects and splitting the difference between the airbrushed high sci-fi he's been laying down and more of a Silver Age Romance Comic style here and there. Frankly based on the cover I'd been hoping for a lot more of the Romance Comic vibe.

Carol is PISSED.

I think Earth-11 Hal is actually Hal Ferris and Carol is Carol Jordan, but I'll have to read again to be sure.

[j9ac9k]

When that security guard comes in and calls her "Miss Ferris" and fake Hal says mentions how "this was meant to be" made me think fake Hal is "Hal Ferris" and he was taking it that the guard was calling Carol by her "married name".

[silly]

The art was great!

Nice to see Carol again.

I could use some help understanding the story. Why were the Earth 11 people doing what theyre doing.

[Gaius]

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Goddammit, I love this show.

[Celgress]

Goddammit, I love this show.

As do (did) I. It left us too soon.

[Gaius]

Goddammit, I love this show.

As do (did) I. It left us too soon.

[Frontier]

The sad thing is how accurate this all is .

[K. Jones]

When that security guard comes in and calls her "Miss Ferris" and fake Hal says mentions how "this was meant to be" made me think fake Hal is "Hal Ferris" and he was taking it that the guard was calling Carol by her "married name".

I picked up on that too, but still wondered why 11-Hal looks like Hal and 11-Carol looks like Carol. But certainly from a personality POV, the "he's not that big of a problem" toxic lothario Hal is not too far afield from the origins of the Primary Star Sapphire, and 11-Carol's all business bravado and bad-assness reeks of Our Hal. It's just striking me that one looks like the part of the other, even if in that universe he's the Ferris and she's the Jordan. And striking me as well, of course, that it appears Wonder Woman still exists there.

Loving it though. Due for a chunky re-read when I get the chance.

[HsssH]

I don't know, my first thought was that Morrison's take here is that you can't just simply gender swap everything and call it a day. If you invert guardians then naturally entire idea of green lanterns (and emotional spectrum by extension) changes. So Earth-11 Hal can't just be a female Green Lantern. So we have multiple swaps that overlap and influence each other and as a result we get a different character, not simply a female version of Hal.

I'm not sure how Wonder Woman not being swapped plays into that. Thou if you are making female centric universe then changing Amazons sounds "wrong", no?

I also loved the bits with Hyperman and went back to re-read previous stuff with him. It is fascinating how many of these, what looked at the time, one-shots end up connecting into one bigger story.